The National Education Association of Rhode Island’s 17th annual Read Across America Day drew some 2,000 children to the Warwick Mall on Saturday.

The classic children’s book by Dr. Seuss is the 6-year-old’s top choice for bedtime reading, his mother, Brittany Morales said.

So when Jamier came home from kindergarten in East Providence recently with a bookmark that read “Meet the cat in the hat” at the Warwick Mall Saturday, she knew they had to go.

The National Education Association of Rhode Island’s 17th annual Read Across America Day drew some 2,000 children based upon the 3,000 or so donated children’s books volunteers gave away, said Marie Glass, president of the NEARI’s Education Support Professionals’ caucus.

The national Read Across America Day is officially Sunday, which was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. (He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, Mass., on March 2, 1904, and died in 1991.)

Children sat cross-legged on a stage and listened to adults take turns on stage reading aloud from books by Dr. Seuss and other children’s book authors as shoppers milled around. Among those listening was Emma Norton, 5, of Portsmouth. She wore a paper hat like the one worn by the cat in the Dr. Seuss book and listened to a reading of another Dr. Seuss book, “Clam-I-Am.”

A Dr. Seuss fan, Emma came home from school one day with a bookmark promoting the event, and showed it to her father, said Diane DiCarlo, her father’s girlfriend. “She said: ‘Can we go?’”

But it wasn’t the Dr. Seuss reference the adults noticed. The bookmark, like the posters advertising the event, featured a photograph of Olympic figure-skater Michelle Kwan, wife of Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Clay Pell. The celebration kicked off with an appearance by Kwan and Pell, who were the first to read to the children.

Others who participated in the event included U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, Board of Education Chairwoman Eva-Marie Mancuso, AFL-CIO President George Nee and U.S. Rep. David Cicilline.